A dynamite explosion at a coal mine manager’s home in a north China village killed 20 primary schoolchildren when their classroom collapsed on top of them.
The dynamite, stored illegally in the coal mine owner's house in Puxian county, Shanxi province, buried the children and some of their teachers at the nearby school, according to a Reuters' report quoting the Beijing News. The mine owner was also killed in the blast on 2 March afternoon, it said.
But the official Xinhua News Agency reported that 11 people were killed, including a nine-year-old boy and a seven-year-old girl at the primary school, a 34-year-old school teacher, a migrant worker and seven villagers.
The report said the rural home-owner killed in the blast was Lu Maolin who operated a catering business and a pharmaceutical shop. But it did not mention whether Lu was a coal mine manager.
Explosives or fireworks manufactured and stored illegally kill hundreds each year in China's rural areas.
More than six thousand miners died last year in accidents and explosions. It made the industry the world's deadliest and forced work-place safety on to the agenda at the annual session of parliament which starts on 5 March.
An official with the county government in coal-rich Puxian said many private coal mine owners possessed large quantities of explosives. "But it is illegal to keep the explosives at home," he said.
The report quoted local police as saying they were "unable to give further details."
Sources: Beijing News, Reuters, Xinhua News Agency
4 March 2005